At the end of World War II, competition in the banking sector was not fierce. Bankers were usually found in very comfortable positions, where profits were good and risks were low. Nonetheless, during the final quarter of last century, banks have been more constantly under pressure and facing augmenting competition. Nowadays, banks compete directly with other non-bank financial institutions. Domestic financial systems, which were previously closed and protected from international competition, are now open and unprotected, and many of those systems were affected negatively. Bank failures became common, apart from being, in some cases, of great proportions and very expensive for taxpayers. Solidity gave way to volatility, both at the domestic and at the international level. As a result, prudential regulation has been used try to reduce volatility and to recover some of the lost solidity. Much of the efforts made to regain stability, mainly at the international level, originated at the Bank for International Settlements or at the Basle Committee. In fact, since the first edition of the Basel Concordat, policymakers around the world have been trying to implement domestically the instructions and models engendered by the officials of the BIS and the Basel Committee, in order to improve the health of the financial systems under their supervision. In 1988 the Basel Committee issued the Basle Capital Accord, in order to prescribe a formula of capital cushion which should be implemented by as many countries as possible, and this new system would make banks more capitalized and, thus, better prepared to face the challenges of globalization. Many countries implemented internally the Basel Capital Accord, including Brazil in 1994. Now, this system is being revised and updated, and a New Capital Accord is about to be issued. The new version should be more efficient, and improve the way that banks deal with risk. This paper aims at analyzing the implementation of the 1988 Basel Capital Accord in Brazil, as well as assessing the perspectives of domestic implementation of the New Capital Accord being designed.